


The Curious Act of Drowning

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lifeguards, Character Death, Humanstuck, M/M, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cronus is a lifeguard who's dissatisfied with his job. He saves Kankri from drowning early in the day and becomes fascinated by him. But will he be able to keep him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Act of Drowning

Cronus gazed from his lookout booth, surveying the beach. He hated lifeguard duty. There were three other guys he could swap out with, and he could be down on the beach getting his suntan lotion rubbed in by one of the choice babes that rested among the sand dunes, but nooooo... he had to be on stupid fucking lifeguard duty, being burned by the sun and stung by god knows what. 

He scanned the beach with his binoculars, scoping out the crowd. Gorgeous day, plenty of hotties. He turned his scope up a bit further, and groaned loudly. Some idiot in red swim trunks was making his way towards the most dangerous area of the ocean, where there was a well known rip tide, armed with only a child's body board. Cronus went to pick up his megaphone, but after a second, shrugged and dropped it. He should be fine. 

But sure enough, Red went under within a matter of seconds. His stupid board went flying as he was pulled out to sea. Cronus sighed, climbing down from his high perch and sprinting down the sand. When he signed up for this, he had always expected to get a girlfriend. He had never expected to, you know, save lives.

He swam straight for the drowning beachgoer, and grabbed him in an instant, slinging his limp arm over his shoulder and heading towards the shore. He dragged him up onto the shore. Cronus tilted his head upwards and administered CPR immediately. After a few breaths, the drowned man sat up, coughed a couple times, and glared at him.

"Excuse me, but were you following the proper security protocol? I believe you were supposed to have been warning me before i venture into dangerous territory, mister..."

"Cronus Ampora, but that doesn't matter, twinkletoes, what matters is that you're on solid ground now, so you can go back to playing with your fairy board for girls." Cronus gestured at the washed up board, which had broken into two pieces.

"My name is Kankri!" he shouted, his face crimson with fury, and my God he looked absolutely adorable when he was angry. Of course, Cronus wasn't going to let him know that. He would just let him burn himself out.

"Right, right. Now, run along, Kankri, wouldn't want you to hurt yourself again." Cronus waved his hand in a dismissing gesture. 

Kankri raised his hand, then struck Cronus across the face, making a large red mark where his hand had been. He practically stormed off, exhaling sharply, his feet making large indents in the sand from how hard he was stomping them. 

Cronus looked at his retreating figure and touched his hand to the scarlet mark on his face. Scowled.

He didn't know what that kid's problem was. But if there was one thing he loved, it was a challenge.

\-----------------

Cronus ran into Kankri again while he was switching shifts. He would be more than happy to never see him again for the rest of his life, but he guessed this made it a lot easier for the both of them. He waved goodbye to Meenah as she climbed up to the top of the lifeguard's perch and approached Kankri as he was packing his bags.

"Hey there. You still mad at me?"

"I believe i'll let it slide just this once." Kankri said, clutching the strap of his bag with white knuckles. "Although i'll stand by what i said before, you could have followed the proper protocol better."

"Yeah." Cronus ran his fingers through his hair. This kid was getting to be more trouble than he was worth.

"Well, I'll be going now. Be on the lookout for manta rays. They're very prevalent this time of year." Kankri hoisted his bag over his shoulder and waved goodbye to Cronus. Smiled.

Cronus nodded. Yeah. Manta rays. He briefly wondered if he'd ever run into this kid again, and was equally hoping that he would, and that he wouldn't. He was an ungrateful little know-it-all, but he had a cute smile. Normally, Cronus would have kicked himself to purgatory and back for even daring to think such a thought, but now thoughts like these were second nature. If only this little shit had more of a redeeming factor than just a pretty face.

\---------------------

Cronus had tricked Mituna into taking his shift a half hour early, which gave him plenty of time for a smoke break. He leaned against the entrance to the shower room and took a drag on his cigarette, exhaling and watching the smoke fade into the air.

“You know, you could get cancer from one of those things. Cigarettes contain several carcinogens, including tar, nicotine, red dye #3...”

Cronus jumped and nearly dropped his cigarette. “Oh, it’s you again.” He was starting to get used to Kankri showing up in odd places.

Kankri began to cough and wheeze, doubling over from shortness of breath and reaching for an inhaler from his bag, taking a pull from it and relaxing. Cronus looked doubtfully at his cigarette before grinding it into the wood floor with the heel of his bare foot, wincing a bit as he did so.

“Asthma, huh?” Cronus asked. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“I’ve suffered from asthma ever since I was small. My father wanted me to try out for sports, despite my condition. I wanted to join the debate team, but he remained firm in his belief that the debate team was for preteen cisgender females. I tried out for the swim team. Barely got in, too. I was ridiculed because i had a weak constitution and wasn’t a very fast swimmer.”

Cronus sat back, trying to process all of this. “So you came to the beach to practice your swimming?”

“Yes. I thought a bit of an independent practice would help me become stronger, unfortunately, the ocean is nothing like any of the swimming pools back home.”

Cronus laughed. “I’ll bet. Hey, you want to grab some coffee after my shift is over?”

“It would be my pleasure.” Kankri said.

\---------------------

"So what's the catch of the day, eh?" called Meenah from the lifeguard's perch. It was her shift, and Cronus was more than happy to take the rest of the day off.

"Can I throw him back?" asked Cronus, laughing. 

"Yeah, exactly. Don't like what you catch, throw it back, get something even better." said Mituna from behind him. He would know. He had pulled his current girlfriend out of the surf 1 year ago and they've been dating ever since. Mituna hadn't even been on duty at the time. Talk about a lucky break. 

Meenah scowled from her seat on the tower. "Guys, you gotta be squiddin me. Can't you just take the job a bit more seriously?"

"That's coming from the girl who uses fish puns and swims in the winter." said Cronus, running his fingers through his hair. "But yeah, babe, i'll try to do better."

Meenah scrunched up her face like she just bit down on a lime. "Just get out of here, you two. I've got last shift."

\------------------

As Cronus was walking down the blazing hot, sandy path to get to his car, keys in hand, he encountered the last person he expected to see.

"Excuse me, but I seem to have lost my body board. I paid an exorbitant sum of money for it, and it would help if you could assist me in retrieving it." Kankri said, tapping Cronus on the shoulder and pointing at the beach that was still visible from where they stood. "I believe it slipped out of my hands when I nearly drowned."

"I hate to say it, but your board might be lost for good, hon. I've seen plenty of surfers lose their boards like that. Never found them since." He backtracked a bit when he saw Kankri scowling at him. "But I could help you look for it."

They reached the beach together and saw the familiar outline of a red and white body board floating in a tide pool. When Kankri pulled it out, however, he found that the board had broken in half, and he was holding the smaller half of the board. The larger half was nowhere to be found.

"Look!" Kankri announced, pointing. Bobbing up and down in the surf was the other half of Kankri's body board.

"Don't go after it," Cronus announced, but it was too late. Kankri had already rushed headlong into the surf. Cronus groaned, then watched as he managed to swim all of the way to the board. He grasped it tightly, pulling it close to his chest as a wave surged over his head.

Several waves passed by the spot where Kankri's head had submerged, and he still had not resurfaced. This time, Cronus didn't feel annoyance, but genuine concern. He rushed straight out into the waves, dodging their crests until he reached the spot where Kankri had gone under. He dove straight down, feeling the icy cold seize his chest like a steel-boned corset and the salt water sting his eyes, but he needed to keep going until he found him.

Finally, he saw a hand. A flash of ginger hair. Kankri had practically sunk to the bottom. Cronus grasped the hand in his and pulled Kankri close, looping an arm around his waist and dragging him to the surface.

Cronus resurfaced, gulping air greedily and holding Kankri's head above air, but he lay limp and pale and cold, like a beautiful doll. Cronus was already mentally berating himself as he headed towards the shore. Had he killed this guy? Was Kankri dead because of him?

He reached the beach, carrying Kankri's limp body in his arms, and set him down on the warm sand. Yet again, he lifted his head, and yet again, he breathed air into his lungs, breathed life into him.

Nothing.

More chest compressions, more rescue breaths. Nothing. He just lay there, cold and still, as Cronus worked himself into a panic trying to restart his heart.

_Can I throw him back._ Just hours ago, Cronus had said that. Now he was choking back tears over somebody he barely knew.He wiped the few drops of moisture that still clung to his lashes and stood, approaching a few girls laying on towels and texting.

"I'm going to need to call 911 with your phone. I've got a guy here who isn't moving and you could save his life." She handed over the phone, and Cronus dialed the number, holding it to his ear, and gave his name and location.

Soon after, the ambulances arrived on the beach, and Kankri was loaded onto a stretcher. He was given mouth-to-mouth by an EMT who swore at Cronus in a heavy Japanese accent when he tried to get too close, and when the defibrillators came out, Cronus knew he had completely fucked up. 

The EMT gave him a quick burst of electricity, then turned to the ambulance driver, who had a red, spiked mohawk, and began conversing in angry, rapid Japanese with violent hand gestures. 

Even without knowing what they were saying, he knew. What had he expected? Something like what Mituna had with Latula? Cronus would be lucky if he could even keep his lifeguarding job after this, not to mention he couldn't get Kankri's smile out of his head. It was stuck there, like a new favorite song that he played over and over until he became tired of it. 

"Did you know him?" asked the EMT at last. They had hooked him up to a machine that measured his heart rate, and the counter stretched out in a steady line, never budging an inch from the center.

"I met him today." Cronus answered.

"Why do you care?" asked the EMT again, lighting up a blunt and taking a drag.

"I just do." Cronus snatched it out of her hand and ground it out in the sand. "Stop trying to devalue human life like that. I met him today. I care about him. And i don't want him to die."

"Too bad." she replied, digging around in the pocket of her white coat for another blunt.

Cronus stormed away, leaning against the lifeguard's perch and lighting up a cigarette. He watched the smoke floating towards Mituna and Latula, making a sandcastle further down on the beach. He angrily blinked back tears. Maybe this could have worked under any other circumstance, any other time, but not now, not today.

Meenah was calling to him, but he barely heard her. He just ground his cigarette out with bare feet and slowly walked towards the rolling waves.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah you all knew this was coming  
> y'all watch too many dead dog movies  
> wipes tear


End file.
